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Student Loans

Update

The lone has timed out so it is written off.

Just to be clear what the root of the issue I have with them. They repeatedly failed to implement a basic change to my account, to synchronise the lone deferment dates, they agreed to do this (repeatedly recorded in my files) but failed to do this. This coursed unnecessary problems for them and me over the 20 years or so and in the end directly lead to the failer of the deferment with them, even though I was already deferred with the other lone company, if you are deferred with one you are deferred with the other. I left them to sought out this mess as they had directly coursed, they did not, and slapped lots of fines and costs onto me and now refuse to right the lone off as its timed out.

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This will be an interesting test for the company, as each time I needed to resolve the issue I asked for the agreement that the accounts would be synchronised next year to be added to my record, I was told this was added to my recoreds. I should receive back hundreds of pages detailing broken agreements. Lets see what happens.

Account number 6319********** Hamish Campbell

**********

london

****** *****

"I apologise if you feel that the level of service you have received has not met your expectations. At Honours Student Loans Ltd we strive to offer the highest possible standard of customer service. Our staff are aware of the level of service expected and having reviewed our records I believe our staff have provided you with the correct information."

The failure of the student loans company

I was at college in the years that the old grant system was faded out to be replace by student loans.

Honours Student Lone 1994-1996 and Erudio Student Loans in 1998.

After I finished the course in 1999 each year you had to fill in a deferment form which needed accounts doing if you were self employed, a letter from the firm accountant if employed, or stamping by the jobcenter if unemployed. This was bureaucratic necessity... but for me this was made more complex by the fact that my loan fell between two different loan companies. If one was deferred then the other was also deferred for the year, but the two companies did not talk to each other for some reason in my case and this was not resolved for more than 15 years.

The Honours student loan company and Erudio Student Loans are the two companies. Every year I have had the same problems with these companies and each year it has been resolved by me takeing the time to force them to talk to each other. That is 15 years of hassle; sometimes by phone calls for weeks at a time. After the same hassle yearly I made an agreement with them that they would talk to each other and synchronise the loan accounts so that the same thing would not happen the next year.

This would allow me to fill in a single form once a year. And each year they failed to make this change they had agreed to do the year before. Each year I would have the same conversations and threats from them and after a lot of hassle the two companies would finally talk to each other and the problem would go away for another year. This went on for 15 years, and each year they failed act to solve the problem after agreeing to do just that.

The loans were up for being cancelled by this time, but in the final year they refused to talk to each other thus, in this final year, they actually went further, the loans had become so much out of sync that the deferment on the Erudio loan was still on going for 3 months – so I was still deferred but they refused to tell Honour student loans of this so I had Honour chasing me for deferment when I was already deferred. I told them to go away and sort this out as the responsibility was theirs for repeatedly not doing what they had agreed to do - synchronising the loan dates.

My response was reasonable - that they had failed to do what they had agreed to do thus it was their responsibility to sort this out. After 5-10 phone calls I put this in writing, they replied with this letter ignoring the point I made:

I dispute the arrears on my account. As you can see on my file the reason for current arrears is the failer of the different student lones companies to synchronise their accounts. Yearly I have been repeatedly promised by the student hones lones that this would be fixed so that the same issue would not be repeated but this was never done and each year I would have the same discussions and the same problems. This has been appalling customer service and unprofessional of your organisation.

Can you please finally fix this

Yours Sincerely

Hamish Campbell

But interestingly the accounts had finally been synchronised after 15 years :) Thank you for resolveing 15 years of broken agreements and hassle.

And there is still the sum outstanding of fines (charges) and interest while they were failing to do this simple thing. This 6 month backlog and is covered by the 3 months my loan actually was deferred (by a correctly filled form by the other company) and the is 3 month back dating so I actually don’t owe them anything even taking into account their behaver.

I would like a full apology from the company for their failures and 15 year delay, and at this stage compensation to cover my time and energy. 15 years of 10-15 phone calls and 5-6 letters each year. At a rate of £200 (my day rate), that would be say 2 full days a year for 15 years - that is £3000 in compensation for my time wasted.

Student Loans driving bankruptcy

There are many outstanding questions on the competency of the Honours student loan company. There will be a growing issue around this incompetency driving individuals into bankruptcy though charges on their student loans.

Let's outline my own current experience. Because of the time I was at university my student loans were shared between the two student loan companies. This has caused a lot of issues over the time of the loan that were never dealt with, even though they were repeatedly agreed to be dealt with.

For more than 15 years the Honours student loan has been failing in its agreement to synchronise and cross check the deferment of my student loans. Each year (that’s more than 15 times) after manually getting this check to happen they have agreed that this would not happen next year. Every time they have failed to fulfil this agreement, and each year the same problems of getting them to do the cross checking happened.

When one company's loan is deferred, the other should also be deferred: basic stuff that should not be a problem. In the final year before the loans were written off, the other loan company refused to communicate that the loan was already deferred because this deferment only had 3 months left to run. I pointed out their clear responsibility for this being an issue due to the loans becoming out of sync due to their repeated negligence. My point was it was a issue directly created by them: thus it was their responsibility to clear this up. Although there were constant phone calls from them they made no attempt to address this and have not yet sent me a meaningful reply to this issue of responsibility.

At the very least I would like this basic issue of how a responsible company can agree to do a basic service, then not do this service, repeatedly leaving me with the possibility of being bankrupted by their failures. Instead of this basic honesty, they are currently avoiding this issue and moving to push me into bankruptcy by calling the loan due in whole, even though it should have already been writern off completely.

The £489 in charges and interest outstanding during the period is a direct result of their failure and they have still not addressed this basic complaint. I am still waiting for a reply to this issue of their negligence being DIRECTLY responsible for the outstanding charges and the failure to write off this loan on the due date.